1000km done!

Yes, you read that correctly- I have cycled 1000km. Not only that, but my legs and arse are still very much in tact and surprisingly pain free. Success!
This would be the mother of all posts if I went through and listed everything that happened, and I'm pretty sure it would be unfathomably dull for the large majority of people. To this end, you can think of this as the highlights package. Given that most of you reading belong to a very select group of family and perhaps two non-relatives, you can rest assured that I will provide a blow by blow account of every pedal along the way, so you have that thrilling prospect on your horizons! But for now, here is kind of a quick summary of funny/interesting/ tasty things that happened:
- we cycled. And cycled. And cycled. And then, just for good measure, we cycled a bit more. Miraculously, I made it to the end without any major issues and I was mighty surprised that my legs had not been transformed into stiff, leaden poles after over 1000km. Even more surprising was that my rear end almost didn't even notice that it had been sitting on what was essentially nothing more than an arrow head for 19 days. Whoever invented padded shorts should be knighted for their services to bums all over the globe, and then promptly stripped of their knighthood for creating the least attractive item of clothing known to mankind. Padded shorts make dungarees look like entirely seductive and alluring attire (which we all know is so, so wrong). Physical pain aside, my bike did not quite make it to the end without difficulty. One day, whilst waiting around for another group member to be treated after a fall, my back tyre suddenly thought "Wow, I've been putting in some serious hours. Time for me to give up". And so it did in the most spectacular fashion; exploding completely randomly and making us run for cover because we thought a rogue monk had come out to shoot us. Not an hour later, having been fitted wit a new tyre, my bike gave up again and decided that it is no longer the most fun to cart around a clumsy Brit and all her worldly belongings (read: many, many malaria tablets). That aside, it served me well, even managing to survive a face-on collision with a truck door which opened directly into me.
-dog chases were a very prominent feature of the trip, with almost everyone being chased by packs of unruly dogs at some point. My own experience happened along a dusty road, in a rare moment of solo cycling: one of the dogs was fully giving me the evil eyes and they chased me for about 50m. I was squealing and flailing like a mad thing on wheels, which the locals apparently interpreted as some kind of travelling comedy routine and just laughed at me. A lot.
-I have learnt Khmer (the language spoken here). Well, I say learnt: I am now fully qualified to point at and name about 5 fruits and animals. I can also say that I drink alcohol-however, I thought it meant 'I`m thirsty' (as I was mistakenly led to believe), so I was basically giving people the impression that I have a drinking problem a few times a day.
-as a group, we consumed a very large amount of rice and eggs. Rice was involved at pretty much every single meal, and, such was the love of rice of one of our guides, when rice was not on the menu, he ordered it anyway. And eggs, sooo many eggs: fried, boiled, omlette-ified, scrambled and once fertilised- there was really no limit to the number of eggs we could consume in a day. All in the name of protein!
-Cambodians like to say hello to people on bikes. Every day, and I really mean every day, as we were cycling merrily along, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, a couple of kids would suddenly come racing out of thin air and ambush us, screaming 'hellohellohellohellohellohello'. This would start a kind of chain reaction and the next half hour would pass in a frenzy of shouting and waving, which is quite dangerous on a road full of pot holes. They also thoroughly enjoy it if you smile at them, so for big long stretches of the route, I was cycling with a big grin plastered to my face. I realise now that they could well have just been laughing at me, rather than smiling with me because I think I must have looked quite insane.
-perhaps the best thing to come out of this trip is that I have discovered the joy of Cambodia! I don't want to get too mushy on you, but it really is a delightful country. The recent history is truly awful and confusing and difficult, but the country as I experienced it is full of spirit and energy. We saw some beautiful scenery and buildings along the way, but the real gem of le Cambodge (as the French so hilariously call it) is the people. Anyone who can put up with my butchering of their language deserves every positive accolade in the book.
I'm now relaxing at the seaside with many, many French and Russian people before heading off to Malaysia to eat my entire body weight (and then some) in fried snacks and fish heads.
Thanks Bodge, you've been a dream!